Cauvery water dispute: SC not to interfere with CMC award

Updated: Monday, December 10, 2012, 18:47 [IST]

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New Delhi, Dec 10: The Supreme Court today made it clear that it will not interfere with the Cauvery Monitoring Committee's order directing Karnataka to provide Tamil Nadu with 12 tmc ft of Cauvery water during Dec despite both warring states expressing dissatisfaction over the award.

A bench of justices DK Jain and Madan B Lokur turned down the plea of Tamil Nadu which contended that the report is factually wrong and the court should interfere in the matter to direct Karnataka to release more water.

"They (members of CMC) are experts and we should not comment on it. If you are not happy with the report, then do what you want to do for getting remedy," the bench said.

"It seems that both sides are not satisfied by the direction issued by the CMC. We leave it for the parties to work out in accordance with law," the bench said in its order.

The bench posted the matter for further hearing on Jan 4 after noting that the order of the Committee is for the month of Dec.

The CMC, which met on the direction of the apex court, had on Dec 7 asked asked Karnataka to provide Tamil Nadu with 12 tmc ft of Cauvery water during Dec.

Kerala and Pudducherry are the other two member states of CMC which is headed by Union Secretary, Water Resources.

"It would seem equitable if Karnataka should manage water in such a way that Tamil Nadu receives 12 Thousand Million Cubic (tmc) feet during the month of December, 2012," the Committee had said in its interim award.

The six-page award said 12 tmc ft water would not be enough to save all the standing crop in Tamil Nadu but would also adversely affect Karnataka.

"Both the states would, after this release, have a shortage of approximately 47 tmc ft against their requirements in December...this is not an elegant situation, as both the states would be dissatisfied. But in the circumstances, this seems the only pragmatic solution, the best that can be done," the award read.

It agreed that both the states have less water in their reservoirs. While Karnataka has 36.30 TMC against the 10 year average of 53.70 tmc ft in its four reservoirs, Tamil Nadu has 17.04 tmc ft against a 10 year average of 59.30 tmc ft.

In an interim relief to Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court on Dec 5 directed Karnataka to release 10,000 cusecs of Cauvery water per day to its neighbouring state and asked the Cauvery Monitoring Committee (CMC) to hold a meeting to decide the amount of water required by each state.

Cusec is a measure of flow rate of water and is abbreviation for cubic feet per second (which is equivalent to a flow of 28.317 litres per second) and 11,000 cusecs flow for a day amounts to 1 tmc ft water.

During the earlier hearing on Nov 26, the court had asked the chief ministers of the two states to meet and arrive at an amicable solution to the "sensitive" Cauvery water dispute.

The talks between the chief ministers of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, however, had failed to break the deadlock on water sharing row and the matter had again reached the apex court.